The House of Bishops begins its spring meeting today with a number of items on the agenda. A primary focus of the meeting will be faith-based reconciliation training as part of the preparations for this summer’s Lambeth Conference. The reconciliation workshops will be led by Canon Brian Cox, a nationally known figure in reconciliation work, and one of the two priests appointed as interim pastoral presence in the Diocese San Joaquin.
According to Cox, quoted in an Episcopal News Service article:
“‘We hope to stimulate a conversation in the House of Bishops about the place of reconciliation in the culture of the Episcopal Church,’ said Cox, who has engaged faith-based reconciliation training and seminars in the Middle East, the Sudan, Kashmir, Burundi and Korea.”
Additionally the House of Bishops will make decisions on whether or not Bishop Schofield has “abandoned the communion” of this church, a canonically determined action that, if he is found to have done, will lead to his formal removal from the ministry of the Episcopal Church.
According to the ENS article:
If a majority of bishops decide that Schofield has abandoned the communion, the Presiding Bishop will be canonically required to declare the see vacant and appoint a provisional bishop.
It is the last step expected in a process that began with the December 8 convention vote of the Central California diocese to leave TEC and realign with the Province of the Southern Cone. A series of developments followed: a Title IV Review Committee determined that Schofield had abandoned the communion; the Presiding Bishop informed the standing committee elected in December that they were no longer recognized as that body; a steering committee was appointed to organize an anticipated March 29 special convention to elect a provisional bishop.
[…]Schofield sent a letter, dated March 1, to Jefferts Schori, resigning from TEC’s House of Bishops. It was unclear if the letter would have any effect on the House of Bishops’ deliberations.
Bishop Schofield’s letter to the House can be view here.
Read the rest of the ENS report here.